Tag Archives: Topic: United Nations

Daily Mail: Speaking from outside the United Nations’ headquarters in New York, the former prime minister and current envoy to the Middle East said Islamist ideology had created an enemy that was ‘insidious and venomous, but also difficult to beat’.

BC Catholic: A U.S. religious liberty group and a Mexican development organization are holding a seminar at the United Nations to advocate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in a way that respects human life and the family. “At this crucial time in history when the sanctity of life and the human family are assaulted at every turn, there is an urgent need to address delegates of the United Nation and make them aware of the importance of protecting the dignity and freedom of every human being,” Alan Sears, the president, CEO, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, said Sept. 18. “Every innocent life deserves to be protected,” he added. [more]

AP: The United Nations voiced concern Wednesday over the fate of more than 100,000 Filipinos displaced by two weeks of fighting between government troops and Muslim rebels, saying they were at risk of disease from crowded and unsanitary conditions in evacuation centers.

CNA: “Our call to action today is to move more quickly to a brighter future – achieving the Millennium Goals more quickly — by ‘going back to the basics’ – looking ahead by rediscovering and mirroring the founding purposes of this United Nations and the enactment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Alan Sears, the president of Alliance Defending Freedom, said Sept. 19. [also posted at NC Register]

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Yesterday Alliance Defending Freedom hosted an event at UN headquarters in New York on the importance of protecting human life and dignity and strengthening families in order to achieve old and new Development Goals. The complete event can be seen on the UN’s webcast.

Susan Yoshihara at C-FAM: The term “reproductive health” seeped without fanfare into UN language in 1972 when it was adopted by Jose Barzelatto, the inaugural head of WHO’s program on human reproduction.

Townhall: The United Nations experts investigating human rights conditions in North Korea said Tuesday that the “shocking” evidence they had collected from defectors and others suggested “large-scale” patterns of abuse that demanded an international response.

Patheos: “At this crucial time in history when the sanctity of life and the human family are assaulted at every turn, there is an urgent need to address delegates of the United Nation and make them aware of the importance of protecting the dignity and freedom of every human being,” Alan Sears, the president, CEO and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, said Sept. 18. “Every innocent life deserves to be protected,” he added . . . The Alliance Defending Freedom has a special website on the Millennium Development Goals and the Thursday seminar at www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/MDGs.

LifeSiteNews: Promoting life and family in the nations is the goal of next week’s event sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom and Incluyendo Mexico. This United Nations Side Event “Life and Family: A Real Approach to the Millennium Development Goals,” seeks to offer information that will help strengthen a focus toward life as the UN strives to reach its Millennium Development Goals. . . Alliance Defending Freedom President, CEO, and General Counsel Alan Sears said: At this crucial time in history when the sanctity of life and the human family are assaulted at every turn, there is an urgent need to address delegates of the United Nation and make them aware of the importance of protecting the dignity and freedom of every human being.

Live Action News: Promoting life and family in the nations is the goal of next week’s event sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom and Incluyendo Mexico. This United Nations Side Event “Life and Family: A Real Approach to the Millennium Development Goals,” seeks to offer information that will help strengthen a focus toward life as the UN strives to reach its Millennium Development Goals . . . Alliance Defending Freedom President, CEO, and General Counsel Alan Sears said: “At this crucial time in history when the sanctity of life and the human family are assaulted at every turn, there is an urgent need to address delegates of the United Nation and make them aware of the importance of protecting the dignity and freedom of every human being.”

Stefano Gennarini at Turtle Bay and Beyond: After decades of population control programs to avert a seemingly inevitable population Armageddon, the people and institutions that are primarily responsible for the false alarmism are on their way out. While some at the United Nations, UNFPA, USAID and the Obama administration still cling to their condoms and bad science under the pseudonym “family planning program” or the oxymoron “reproductive rights” ( it never has to do with women choosing how many children to have and always with USAID telling women not to have any more children), economists and demographers are all agreed that the problem the world is facing is population aging and population decline – caused by human beings. Unfortunately, it will takes decades, and maybe centuries to re-trace the trail of misery and ignorance they have left.

Reuters: Russia and the international peace envoy for Syria warned on Friday that U.S. military action against Syria would be illegal without U.N. Security Council approval and would undermine the chances for a political solution to the conflict.

Will Baude at the Volokh Conspiracy: Last week I asked whether Presidents have a stronger obligation to obey domestic law than they do to obey international law, and suggested at least one argument for that view.

CFAM: The British-style phone booth labeled “Talk to God” appeared in a Plaza outside a UN meeting in Uruguay. It sported a poster asking if Virgin Mary’s pregnancy was “desired.” Pedestrians were encouraged to record a message to God denouncing religious “fundamentalism” and praying for legal abortion.

LifeNews: Radical extremists infiltrated yet another UN meeting to promote their agenda which has failed to advance since the population and development conference at Cairo and which is increasingly opposed at major UN meetings by a growing coalition of countries with pro-life laws and policies.

C-FAM: The UN human rights office has launched a media campaign promoting homosexual and transgender rights. The yearlong initiative, funded by outside sources, raises questions over the use of UN offices for what some governments will consider propaganda.

AP: The Senate is ready to approve President Barack Obama’s choice to be the next ambassador to the United Nations, a day after a nail-biting marathon vote frayed but kept intact the chamber’s recent bipartisan spirit toward nominations.

AP: Called Free & Equal, it’s an unprecedented effort by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to change public attitudes around the world on issues that have bitterly divided the U.N.’s own member states.

Kenneth Anderson at the Volokh Conspiracy: David Bosco, who authors the outstanding “The Multilateralist” blog at Foreign Policy (where he is a contributing editor and who is also my American University colleague in the School of International Service), conducted an interview a few weeks ago with the Heritage Foundation’s Brett Schaefer and me on the United Nations.

LifeSiteNews: International abortion lobbyists are rejoicing over a UN Security Council Resolution passed last week which for the first time has the Council calling on countries to implement “non-discriminatory and comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health.”

C-FAM: An international lawyer has filed complaints against France in the UN Human Rights Council for brutalizing peaceful demonstrators. Videos show French police beating marriage demonstrators, using tear gas and clubs against women, men, elderly and children.

Turtle Bay and Beyond:In a loss for homosexual groups at the United Nations, member states declined to establish a special UN office for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights last week. Earlier this year, UN insiders told the Friday Fax that homosexual and transgender rights would soon become mainstream at the United Nations. But their predictions failed to materialize at the current session of the Human Rights Council.

C-FAM: Abortion was rarely mentioned by dignitaries on stage during the international webcast portions of Women Deliver, a global conference on family planning. The non-webcast breakout sessions, however, featured late-term abortionists, radical activists describing how to skirt abortion laws, and World Health Organization experts promoting their how-to-do-abortions manual.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: About one-third of the Human Rights Office’s overall expenditures is paid from its regular budget, she explained, while two-thirds comes from extra-budgetary sources. Nordic countries – especially Norway – are unabashedly aggressive in pushing abortion. Now they are outsourcing – or laundering – their promotion of homosexuality through a UN agency.

Piero Tozzi at Turtle Bay and Beyond: This Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which serves as the hub for much of the United Nations’ various human rights activities – and, indeed, a good deal of its mischief too – recently sent out a request to civil society organizations for submissions on what concerns it should put on its agenda for 2014-2017.

Ben Bull at Christian Post: Speaking via video link to the Oslo Conference on Human Rights on April 15, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he is launching an international campaign to elevate the demands of sexually confused individuals over the demands of other individuals.

C-FAM: European leaders pressing President Obama to fund African abortions argue that a novel interpretation of laws governing war should trump US restrictions on abortion funding. To make their case, they are elevating the views of a few experts from a different body of law—human rights.

Austin Ruse at C-FAM: The proposed code also addresses the outsize influence of the UN bureaucracy and non-governmental organizations on treaty bodies. Over the past fifteen years, the commissions have succumbed to pressure to promote abortion on demand as well as special rights for homosexuals, though no human rights agreement mentions either. The nature of treaty bodies compounds the influence that the UN bureaucracy and nongovernmental organizations exert on human rights monitoring.

Huffington Post: The United Nations offers a crucial, albeit under-acknowledged, platform for raising awareness about anti-LGBT bullying in terms of human rights and exchanging best practices to counteract the problem. Similarly, sports, with their exceptional capacity to straddle varying belief systems, serve as a universal language for communicating this message. In June 2011, for example, the UN Human Rights Council passed the United Nations’ first-ever resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gay Star News: The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has promised to lead a global campaign for LGBT rights. And he has told governments around the world that they have a ‘legal duty’ to protect gay and trans people and that ‘culture, tradition or religion’ could not be used as an excuse for failing to do so.

C-FAM: The tiny island nation of Malta has been singled out as a human right abuser by legal experts in Europe in preparation for its next review by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Malta’s unforgivable offense is protecting human life in the womb.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: An article from Keith Riler at First Things fleshes out the long term effects of population control efforts among the poor in America. Riler suggests that the FED and States should gladly spend $11,000 worth of Medicare on births among poor Americans, rather then spend for family planning. Riler sees it as an investment.

LifeSiteNews: A recent United Nations report on torture and mistreatment in health care systems around the world singled out lack of access to abortion as a form of “torture,” classifying it as a human rights violation on par with female genital mutilation, forced sterilizations and state-sanctioned beatings.

Erika Bachiochi at Public Discourse: Both sociological evidence and the teachings of Christianity show that religion is a powerful ally for promoting the equality and dignity of women. Adapted from remarks delivered at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Houston Chronicle: During the all night vote-a-rama to pass the Senate budget resolution last week, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz received a less-than-friendly visit from a colleague over his abortion amendment.

C-FAM: The United States brought in veteran activist Adrienne Germain to direct their negotiators. She was instrumental for the Clinton administration at the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) where “safe abortion” first became a rallying cry for the global abortion lobby. At this year’s CSW abortion groups found themselves stymied by that very landmark conference. ICPD does not recognize abortion as a right and says it should never be used as a backup to contraception.

C-FAM: The Agence France-Press reported on March 5, the second day of the Commission, “Much has been made at [CSW] of a World Bank report which estimates that more women aged 15-44 are killed violently than die of malaria, HIV, cancer, accidents and war combined.” The statistic is used by multiple UN agencies and appears on the official UN resources for speakers. On March 13, it was cited in a New York Times editorial criticizing the Holy See and its allies for holding firm against feminist efforts to turn the CSW meeting into a call for global abortion access.

C-FAM: A last ditch effort by ambassadors and top UN officials failed last night to reach agreement on policies to end violence against women because powerful western developed countries want to scrap previous agreements that do not recognize abortion as a right.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: A common theme in criticisms of “unmet need” is the fact that it does not reflect actual demand. Women included in the totals include those who have religious or other objections to contraception.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Over 20 groups are asking U.S. Secretary of State to end the U.S. obstruction over abortion at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Here is the letter sent today . . . It is especially shocking that the U.S. called for deleting a reaffirmation that every human being has the “inherent right to life, liberty and security of persons.” This contradicts a foundational principle of citizens and civilizations worldwide. [Piero Tozzi of Alliance Defending Freedom is one of many signers]

One News Now: The Alliance Defending Freedom also spoke at the same U.N. forum, saying the problem with treaty bodies goes beyond resources and money. “The real problem lies in the treaty bodies assuming powers which do not belong to them,” said ADF.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Last night, the US and EU called for deleting a reafirmation that every human being has the inherent right to life, liberty and security of persons. This year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) has become the equivalent of D-Day for abortion hard-liners

Scholars have filed more than 50 amicus briefs with the Supreme Court urging it to uphold California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). While the media seems intent on ignoring these briefs and hyping the briefs on the other side, the sheer number and quality of the briefs in defense of laws recognizing marriage as the union of a man and a woman is impressive.

LifeNews: On International Women’s Day, the United Nations is coming under criticism for a report claiming that nations that fail to allow legalized abortion are allowing the “torture and ill treatment” of women.

Christian Science Monitor: However, International Women’s Day originally commemorated the working rights protests led by female garment workers. Many seem to forget the holiday’s ties to the working rights movement in the United States and the Socialist Party.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Placing women in combat is touted today by the Obama administration as its primary accomplishment on International Women Day. Inserting women into the most violent situations in the world turns a War on Women into a War With Women. US [Ambassador to the United Nations] . . . of State Susan Rice released this statement today.

C-FAM: As UN delegates in closed rooms debate language regarding access to abortion for women who have been violated, two women at an event blocks away presented a powerful argument for breaking the cycle of violence by rejecting abortion even when the child’s conception is the result of rape.

C-FAM: The meeting has barely begun and UN member states are already deadlocked in negotiations at the Commission on the Status of Women this week at UN headquarters. The new line of attack appears to be a push to establish abortion for cases of rape as a right of reparation under humanitarian law.

Mary Langlois at LifeSiteNews: Although the lofty treaties, speeches and other goings-on at the United Nations often seem irrelevant to parents with busy lives, it is increasingly important that we pay attention to some troubling developments that could gravely effect the lives of all U.S. citizens.

Piero Tozzi at Turtle Bay and Beyond: As reported in last week’s Friday Fax, Alliance Defending Freedom took the floor recently at a General Assembly forum on how to reform United Nations Treaty Bodies, calling on the Treaty Bodies not to usurp functions that do not rightfully belong to them.

enowned medical experts and researchers will discuss groundbreaking findings on the most important factors in saving the lives of mothers in childbirth at a policy briefing and press conference Wednesday

Turtle Bay and Beyond: As the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women begins today, two news stories are already disingenuously implying that the Holy See, the Russian Federation, and Iran are effectively enablers of violence committed against women. These and several other UN member states oppose the inclusion of language that could be used to support a right to abortion – a topic that is always controversial within the UN system.

A coalition of religious freedom advocacy groups will hold a parallel event at the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva Wednesday to call upon all nations to respect universally acknowledged international standards.

Life News / C-Fam: “The problem we are facing with the work of treaty bodies goes beyond resources and money,” the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) told the forum. “The real problem lies in the treaty bodies assuming powers which do not belong to them.”

Seattle Times: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday joined the United States and Israel in rejecting statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who compared Zionism to fascism at a United Nations meeting aiming to promote dialogue between all faiths.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: In December, the EU tried to qualify the word “family” with “various forms of the family exist” in a GA resolution on observing the international year of the family (2014). The proposal was shot down by the G77 (who sponsored the resolution), and the EU whined vociferously during the adoption of the resolution in the General Assembly.

Huffington Post: “What we’re really talking about here is creating a world and a society where sexual orientation change efforts are looked upon as as ridiculous for LGBT people as they are for a heterosexual person,” said Toiko Kleppe, a representative of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. “That is also a world that human rights law is in favor of.”

Stefano Gennarini at C-FAM: A major disagreement among demographic experts threatens to upend efforts to include population control and family planning programs in the United Nations new development agenda. Experts who view population growth as an obstacle to development are criticizing the “laissez-faire attitude” of developing countries toward population growth and high fertility. Yet other experts disagree, saying that population control and family planning are not essential to development strategies.

Austin Ruse at C-Fam: Policy makers around the world are regularly informed by seemingly authoritative sources that “sexual orientation and gender identity” are new categories of non-discrimination in international law. What this means is that national and international laws have to change to accept the idea that homosexuality and its various permutations including transvestitism cannot be discriminated against in any way.

Israel National News: The United Nations says Israel must withdraw all of its citizens from the regions of Judea and Samaria. The recommendation came in a report issued Thursday by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has a history of passing numerous biased resolutions condemning Israel for various alleged ‘crimes’ each year.

Boston Globe (AP): Questions about God and religion were rife at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this year — providing a philosophical break from the more temporal concerns that tend to dominate the annual gathering of business and political leaders.

World Magazine: Meanwhile, outside groups advocating for religious freedom are scant too, especially compared to other interest groups at the UN like the gay-rights lobby. Open Doors USA recently shut down its advocacy operation at the UN in New York, though it still has staff in Europe. The Jubilee Campaign, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Center for Law and Justice, the World Evangelical Alliance, the Humanist and Ethical Union, and the Bahais have staff tasked to lobby the UN on the issue. That amounts to about a dozen people doing full-time advocacy on an issue that affects billions of people around the world.